Bloke was driving a Land Rover when he hit a naked woman right in the middle of an interstate trunk road, just 45 minutes drive south of Sydney at around 7:30 pm Sydney time.

He reported to police that when he got out to lend assistance, he saw a man and a woman driving off in a white car. The police checked a number of hospitals but discovered no joy.

Then around early morning some 7 hours later and nearly 600 kilometres away in another state, Victoria, the police stopped a Suzuki sedan and discovered an injured woman in the front seat. She was from Cabramatta in Sydney.

Cabramatta has a large Vietnamese and Laotian population, and nice Cambodian koay teow soup in its market. Anyway, the cops then took her to the nearest hospital at Shepparton, a country town which hosts a number of Afghan refugees. The woman underwent surgery for a number of injuries.

The whole matter got very messy after that, which is too confusing to me. You can read the news piece yourself here.

But I wonder how the hell does one meet a naked woman in the middle of a major trunk road, and then hit her. I am familiar with the spot of the accident, called Pheasant Nest, having driven past there on numerous occasions. It’s a bridge-road over some deep valley south of Sydney.

But I have never meet any naked woman there before. Alas, I am the poorer for the lack of experience. Hmmm, time for a drive to Pheasant Nest?

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

In my previous blog on Japan Fears Chinese Invasion I wrote about the near impossibility of invading island-nations like Australia and Japan unless the invader has a powerful amphibious capability.

An anonymous reader suggested that “military forces don't really need that HUGE amphibious support. They just need a few ship to transport about 100 000 men and station them there and there you have it.. an invasion.”

He or she then went on to provide an example with Iwo Jima, presumably during WWII. He/she stated “you can see that there's when the land invasion begun. Nobody really needed any big amphibious support.”

Well, war is a bit more complex than that, and particularly so with an amphibious operations. Iwo Jima had 10 weeks of preparatory air bombings and 3 days of naval bombardment to enable the marines to land on the beach. Even then, the battle was so ferocious that more than one-third of the 70,000 marines were killed, injured or suffered from battle exhaustion.

That provides a picture of what will be involved and required in any amphibious invasion. Air invasion is not sustainable because it cannot transport as many troops as a seaborne fleet and is difficult to resupply. Also, large scale air transportation of paratroopers are highly vulnerable.

What I am going to write will be largely off my cuff. If necessary, I’ll do the research later to back up my arguments when I have settled my personal immediate plans. Though I am not an expert on amphibious operations, I am not entirely without some basic knowedge. I won't be dealing with the history of amphibious operations as well. The following provides a brief sketch of what would be involved.

To invade, say a nation like Japan, one needs an amphibious fleet (or even several) to transport say, 500,000 to a million troops and their equipment, such as tanks, artillery, transportation, the usual military stuff like bridging gear, radio equipment, ammunition, food, water, medicine, hospital stuff, shoes, clothing, shelters, etc.

To ensure all these would evenrually land on the Japan beaches, the whole convoy has to be escorted there safely. The enemy sure isn’t going to sit still and welcome the invaders. They’ll be sending aeroplanes, warships and submarines to destroy the amphibious fleet. Therefore the invader needs an armada to protect the troop carriers and their equipment.

One would have attack submarines to destroy enemy submarines and warships. One would have aircraft carriers to provide air cover for the convoy, and eventually the offensive air power to prepare and protect the beach landings. One would require numerous warships to protect the aircraft carriers and to conduct the preparatory naval bombardment before the beach landing.

Once the troops have established the landing after severe assaults (remember the successful Normandy and the disastrous Gallipoli) they have to be resupplied – food, ammunition, fuel, fresh troops to replace those killed or injured, shelter, you name it, they need it. The logistics are quite complex and frighteningly demanding.

Then airfields have to be prepared on shore to accept tactical fighter bombers and their equipment, bombs and ammunition, and fuel. These require army engineers and earth moving equipment such as tractors, bulldozers, cranes, etc.

We haven’t even touched on medical evacuation, disposal of the dead, imprisonment of POWs and feeding/interrogating them, policing of occupied regions, maintenance of occupied infrastructure, and the list goes on and on.

During a court trial, people could hear the sound of a handpump coming from beneath the judge’s bench. It was discovered that 58-year old US Judge Donald Thompson had been masturbating with a penis pump during a murder trial.

During his suctioned romp, I wonder how he overruled or sustained counsellors’ objections? How would he assess the legal validity of counsellors’ argument as he drove himself up to the orgasm. In that brief second of physical heaven, would he still retain his legal jurisprudence?

Oh, the interesting question must be how long did he ‘sustain’ his buildup to the climax before his primal instinct ‘overruled’ his magisterial equanimity?

Thompson has been charged with 3 counts of indecent exposure for masturbating with the incriminating device during the murder case. Apparently he had used the pump previously during another murder trial and a civil case in 2003. Hmmm, I wonder what were the verdicts? Or perhaps, the trials were f***ing boring?

The device will be offered as evidence during his trial - Exhibit 'A'?

One final puzzling question, who was the whistleblower who dobbed on the judge who nudged his bulge?

In a nation where civil liberty laws are still strong, profiling a certain ethnic group, even for anti-terrorist purposes, carries severe legal penalties. Law suits can sometimes carry consequences of multi-million dollar payouts.

The unfortunate issue about anti-terrorist measures is that there will be the inevitable racial profiling. During the Malayan Emergency, Chinese were racially profiled as communist terrorists. Even though the communist insurgents were made up from all races, the Chinese predominated among the insurgents hence it was no coincidence that that ethnic group provided the main suspects.

Sometimes such police intelligence profiling were allowed to disgracefully degenerate into racial abuse - my parents suffered from remarks in public places such as "Hindu mungkin boleh dipercayai, tetapi semua China communist" (perhaps Indians may be trusted but all Chinese are communists). Racial profiling can carry such unpleasant consequences.

In the 1930s to just after WWII, the British authorities in British Palestine profiled the Jewish terrorists such as the Irgun and the Stern gang or LEHI as it was more correctly known by.

The Jews then were the nasties, murdering isolated British troops or tossing grenades into coffee shops with all the collateral damage for innocent coffee drinkers, or leaving bombs in embassies, etc.

Today the West in particular are concerned about Islamist terrorism. So their intelligence tactics dictate that they profile principally men from the Middle East or Muslims from places like Indonesia. But the Australian government obviously doesn’t want to admit that. It has gone to extraordinary length to assure Muslim Australians that they aren’t targeted.

But the police who have to do the actual work are mindful of Australia’s anti-discrimination laws and want the federal government to indemnify them against civil lawsuits in cases as just discussed.

Mark Burgess, who represents federal, state and territory police officers aid bluntly, "Everyone's skirting around this but no one is saying it" referring to the inevitable profiling of Muslim Australians.

He continued, "If the intelligence suggested that the likely terrorist will be a young male of Middle Eastern appearance, then they are the people that will be searched.”

"In New York, there have now been a number of high-profile civil actions commenced against police for racial profiling."

But PM John Howard, mindful of the legal and political minefield he could be stepping into denied that the anti-terrorist laws being introduced were designed to target any particular group.

But the most important aspect from this debate that should be food for thoughts is that Australia can be proud of its anti-discrimination laws which have forced the issue out into the open, rather than be ashamed of its proposed anti-terrorist laws.

Debate means there is balance – yes, it may tilt the balance one way or the other but the point is that people are careful about the rule of law. When the rule of law reigns, issues will regain its position of equilibrium eventually.

The two items of Japanese foreign policies that greatly interest the global community were not mentioned at all by Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi in a major policy delivery.

These were Japan’s troops commitment to Iraq and her relationship with China.

Looking at the first, the Iraqi involvement, Koizumi obviously has to show some form of political support for its principal ally the USA, unpopular as the troops commitment in Iraq is at home. Japan is in the same pair of shoes as Australia is – each considers the USA as its defence benefactor and major political ally, and cannot afford to ignore nor offend the Americans, even in an illegal war. Both Australia and Japan are involved in the unpopular occupation of Iraq.

There is however one major difference. Australia can and has committed combat troops while Japan, still restricted by its constitution, could only despatch non-combatant troops, mainly military engineers. In fact, the Japanese troops are protected by a contingent of 450 Aussie soldiers, and both in the bigger picture, are in turn operating under the aegis of the British occupation army in souhern Iraq.

Japan is aware that all three Anglo-Saxon members of the Coalition of the Willing are already planning to exit Iraq, which may placed the Japanese engineers in the unenviable position of being less protected. I suspect Koizumi has not commented on Japan’s continuing commitment in the Middle East nation because he wants to keep Japan’s option fairly open but without offending the Americans or upsetting domestic opinions.

Nearer at home, Koizumi is aware that Japan’s relationship with an increasing powerful China is pretty appalling. Koizumi who will be retiring from politics next year is caught between two acrimonious groups, one being his LDP extreme rightwing faction who doesn’t want to be apologetic about Japan’s wartime atrocities and the other the enraged Asian countries, chief among whom is China, who had suffered enormously from Japanese military savagery and barbarism and will not countenance an unrepentent Japan.

Repeated incidents of Japan’s attempt at historical revisionism to white-wash its long list of war crimes have ensured Chinese and Korean suspicions and continuing hatred of Japan. To add to the turbulence, last year Japan officially identified China as its chief threat. The recent exposure of Japanese war plans to deal with an invading China haven’t added to amicable confidence building between the two nations.

Could it be that Koizumi in remaining mum about its China relationship is applying the same formula – keep all options regarding China open but without offending both external and dometic feelings?

Monday, September 26, 2005

Tony Blair’s government has somehow persuaded the IAEA to take the Iranian nuclear standoff to the UNSC. If we recall, Tony Blair also persuaded Bush to take the neo-con plans to rape Iraq to the UNSC to gain legitimacy for an illegal invasion. That gambit failed, leading to an immature and petulant American show of disrespect for the world body because it couldn't get its bullying way.

Yes, Tony Blair is big on using the UNSC to attempt to cover his bullsh*t schemes with cloaks of legal respectability, but it doesn’t mean diddly squat if he and his American taikoh don’t get what they want.

Blair's claim is that there is growing international concern over the Islamic state’s alleged covert weapons programme. I too fear anyone with nuclear weapons, whether it is Iran, China, Russia, Pakistan, India, UK, France or America, North Korea or for that matter, Japan.

But the galling bias and inconsistency has been noted in the US (and its allies’) tolerance of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. As an example, just because Musharraf shook Ariel Sharon’s hand and praised the Israeli leader (yes sir, Musharraf praised Sharon), the latter said it believes Pakistan is not a nuclear threat.

Not a nuclear threat?

In fact Pakistan has been the most irresponsible nuclear power ever there is – selling nuclear equipment and technology helter skelter without any control. Please recall the notorious AQ Khan, who could only have acted with the approval of Pakistan’s top brass.

If there is any country that needs international sanction against, not that I am in favour of such sanctions because only the ordinary people suffer, Pakistan should be the prime candidate. Pakistan's conduct in nuclear responsibility, or rather its lack of, is a major threat to the world. But it gets away with such irresponsibility because it behaves as a toady of the US, and what better proof of its toad-iness than for President Musharraf to shake the hands of Ariel Sharon, the master of the US Middle East foreign policy.

But Iran has the bloody cheek to stand aloof from the American camp. If the Pahlavi dynasty was still ruling Iran and ran a nuclear programme as well, then that would have been alright, because as an American client state (like Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the erstwhile American ally, the Taliban Afghanistan, once were) it would have been considered by the Anglo-Americans as a responsible state.

OK, we know the insurgency problems in south Thailand. It has been going on for years. A problem that has historical, religious and political elements, made worse by Bangkok’s marginalisation of one of its outposts, the issue came to a head in recent times by an atrocity by Thai military heavy handedness. The argument that Muslim insurgents had killed innocents, people such as teachers and Buddhist monks, doesn’t hold much water because government troops should not have descended down to the level of terrorists.

Now the conflict has gotten worse. Insurengts have not only killed two marines but tortured them in the process. The Thai authorities are pretty pissed off.

But even more drastic for the insurgents, Thai public opinion have turned angrily against the terrorists. Political observers suggested that the Thais have been so shocked by the savagery of the atrocity that the PM feels he now has the mandate to adopt very stern measures. I believe the insurgents have crossed the line of public tolerance to their detriment. This is an example of a military objective gone wrong. From a politico-military fight for independence or autonomy, the terrorists have descended to sheer criminal sadistic savagery.

Precisely because of that, the outrage of the Thai people, the Thai Prime Minister has vowed to restore law and order in the region, and has put his money where his mouth is – he’s taking personal charge. He’s basically assuming responsibility for the success of the anti-terrorist campaign he’s about to launch.

He said "I will take responsibility for anything that goes wrong from now. If I don't do the job well during the next three years, don't vote me back in. "If I violate the law you can seek legal action against me."

When a nation's political head, who will face the people's opinion in the next general election, puts his political neck on the chopping block, you may bet he’s going to take all measures, repeat, all measures to ensure he comes up tops. I bet more than just troops will be poured into the region.

As the Islamist militants are known to slip across the southern border into and from Muslim dominated Malaysia, especially its north-eastern state of Kelantan where they enjoy the support, covert or otherwise, of many kinfolks and co-religionist sympathisers, Malayisa may be drawn into the Thai turmoil.

Thus a Malaysian minister has expressed concerns about the conflict, and proposed ASEAN mediation to help resolve the animosity.

The Malaysian making the suggestion is none other than Malaysia's Education Minister, Hishammudin Hussein. Hishamuddin has made those comments undoubtedly with also his own political constituency and worries about domestic politics in mind.

Another unfortunate and indirect involvement in the brutal killings of the marines had been the presence of some Malaysian journalists who were called in by the insurgents to provide more sympathetic reporting. Though the Thai negotiators had allowed this, the action has outraged the Thai authorities. Thus it’s not entirely surprising that the Thai PM Thaksin has virtually responded with a ‘thanks but no thanks and f*** off’.

He has correctly classified the torture and killing of the marines as a domestic law and order issue, but he said that if Malaysia really wants to help, it could do so by preventing the Islamist militants from slipping across the border.

By contrast to Hishammudin’s perceived interference with Thai domestic affairs, Malaysia’s Deputy PM, Najib Tun Razak has assured the Thais that Malaysia will not interfere in its domestic affairs. In fact, he stated that Malaysian authorities will tighten security to prevent militants from using Malaysia as a base to launch attacks into Thailand. He also advised Malaysian journalists to be more aware of Thai feelings and avoid involvement in any such affairs that could be misinterpreted as unhelpful foreign interference.

For a country that has perpetrated untold atrocities on China, Japan is highly worried about China invading its territories, even those that it has claimed.

It’s military has contingency plans to deal with such invasions. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper revealed that Japan’s military has even considered the possibility of China occupying the disputed islands of Diaoyu, where reported hugh gas fields may exist.

Those contingency plans in some cases visualise China attacking and invading Japan in the event of a war between China and Taiwan.

Those types of Japanese contingencies or fears are as fanciful as the Australian fears of an Indonesia invading the continent nation.

Today there is only, I say that again, ONLY one nation in the world that possesses the ncessary military capability to launch such an invasion and occupation.

Many people, especially Aussies, and perhaps Japanese, aren’t realistic enough about the potentials of their ‘perceived’ threats. They tend to over inflate the capabilities of their principal threats, based on psychological or prejudiced fears rather than substance or facts.

To invade island nations like Australia or Japan, the threat must possess a powerful amphibious capability, consisting of many aircraft carriers with a powerful air combat fleet, numerous amphibious troop carriers, a gargantuan air and sea logistic capability to supply and maintain the invading force, and lots of money like several hundreds if not thousands of billion (American) dollars. Don't believe me, do ask President Bush - he'll tell you!

Does either Indonesia or China have these essential military elements?

And true enough, the Japanese top secret plans admitted that there is only a faint likelihood of an attack by China. But I suppose those planning would be good to rekindle the Japanese bushido spirit that had caused the Asian Holocaust that westerners like Americans and Europeans don’t pay the same attention or guilty-cringe towards as they do with the European Holocaust.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

The British have decided that they have had enough of Iraq, and will be pulling out by May. The Observer newspaper obtained the secret plans from ‘reliable’ military sources.

The Blair government has kept mum over this issue, but alarm bells are now ringing loud in Tokyo. The Japanese military have an engineering unit where the Brits are. Though 450 Aussie troops have been assigned to specifically protect the non-combatant Japanese engineers, the withdrawal of the large British contingent will affect both the Japanese and Aussie deployment in southern Iraq.

So Blair's infamous lie about Saddam Hussein's WMDs' 45 minutes to London, which led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the death of so many innocents, has turned full circle.

The two British SAS soldiers, whose arrest led to a British tank unit conducting a jail break, had been spying on Iranian infiltration into southern Iraq. The Iraqi Shiites there are obviously cooperating with their Iranian co-religionists to gear up for the inevitable civil war in Iraq.

Leave aside the British jail break and consider the implications of a future southern Iraqi state, with significant Iranian influence. What does this expansion of Iranian Shiite influence spell for the USA and her Gulf client states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? It’s no wonder the Saudi foreign minister was fretting and moaning about the American piss-poor handling of Iraq by marginalising the Iraqi Sunnis, who formed the insugency movement.

The Americans thought they would be clever by slicing off the Sunni sector and investing in an oil-rich Kurdish province (a potential future independent state friendly and dependent on the USA and Israel) and an equally oil-rich southern Shiite Iraq dominated by its 'man in Iraq',Ahmad Chalabi. And we haven't even examine in full yet the Turkish facto in the US-contrived breakup of Iraq.

Jesus loves you BUT according to a US Christian school, NOT if your parents are lesbians. Read this.

Maybe it's no longer "Suffer the little children to come unto Me" but more of:

"You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me, and showing mercy to thousands of those that love Me and keep My commandments". [Exodus Chapter 20: 5-6]

"And the LORD passed by before him and proclaimed, Jehovah! Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the sons, and on the sons of sons, to the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed toward the earth, and worshipped". [Exodus Chapter 34: 6-7]

"You shall not make a graven image for you, any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, and doing mercy to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments". [Deuteronomy Chapter 5: 8-10]

"Ah, Lord Jehovah! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and stretched out arm. Nothing is too great for You. You show loving-kindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their sons after them. The great, the mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is His name, great in wisdom and mighty in work; for Your eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings". [Jeremiah Chapter 32: 17-19]

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Hart Viges was not only a former American soldier who served in Iraq but a member of the famed 82nd Airborne, with its proud history in WWII.

He was horrified by what the US did to Iraqi civilians and filed for conscientious objector status. Before he was assessed by the military psychologists and pronounced as a person who qualifies for conscientious objector status, he was beaten up by masked person charging into his barracks one night.

He provided a frightening insight into the war's dehumanising effects.

Viges revealed how indiscriminate fire from US troops killed an untold number of Iraqi civilians.

But the most sickening of all was his revelation that the troops were ordered to open fire on ALL taxis in the city of Samawa because military intelligence had it that Iraqi insurgency forces were using them for transport. Tough sh*t if you were an innocent taxi driver or Iraqi family.

Add one more name to the list of the American Gulag Archipelago. There’s an American paratroop base called ‘Mercury’ near the city of Fallujah that tortures Iraqi prisoners, like using a baseball bat to break a prisoner’s leg. A whistleblower who couldn’t stomach the evil conducted there was prevented from leaving the base to report to a Senate committee.

Saudi Arabia has began to sound the Sunni concerns that I say it would, as the Sunni neighbours of Iraq see the ascendancy of its enemies, the Shiites.

They worry that Iran is abetting the Shiite faction in Iraq to the detriment of the Sunni Arabs there. They see the threat of a Kurdish breakaway province that would be an ally of the Israelis. Associate with the Kurdish problem they see the inevitable intercession of Turkey who fears a Kurdish political entity and also lusts for Iraqi oil assets in the north.

The Saudi foreign minister has addressed these concerns to the Americans.

I have blogged on thee so frequently that I don't intend to elaborate any further.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Unlike Zimbabwe, when the South African majority blacks gained their rightful place to head a government that does not practice racist apartheid, they did not seize back the land of their forefathers that was unfairly appropriated by white settlers.

87% of agricultural land was owned by the 10% whites. But land re-distribution is vital to a more equitable and stable South African society, so it has been encouraging a legal buy-back. Over 10 years this has resulted only in 7% land being successfully purchased for re-distribution.

Many white settlers have refused to cooperate or are holding back for an exorbitant price. The government has finally lost its patience. It will now move to seize, for a start, a 500 hectares land owned by a white farmer, but it will do so under an expropriation legislation, legally that is, with avenues for challenges by the land owner and full and fair compensation.

I am not entirely surprised. The blacks in South Africa have been so badly treated for so long that it's a wonder that there was no bloodbath after the rise of black power - thanks to the fair and farsighted qualities of Nelson Mandala.

It’s high time that the original owners get back a piece of their ancestral land, but in a manner that does not completely dispossess the current owners. Otherwise, how else can that troubled nation gain the justice, stability and peace it so deserves.

This is quite funny. The most feared ‘bad boy’ of the world telling China that the Asian country is frightening other nations. And who was it that Nelson Mandala said is the most dangerous nation on the planet Earth? Certainly not China.

The US' Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, told China that it is causing a ‘cauldron of anxiety’ in the US and other parts of the world (but I don't think so in Africa or a number of Middle Eastern and South American nations).

He said that the US had worked hard to bring China into the international system over the past 30 years, but now wants to ensure China behaves as a responsible player on the world stage. It’s like the village bully, who is bashing all sundry around him and wading through pools of innocent blood almost everywhere, telling a bloke who hasn’t caused any trouble that the latter must be responsible.

I agree but at the same we have to acknowledge many countries have lost faith that the USA under Bush will ever be trusted or that she will pursue ‘peaceful’ path. Look into the mirror, Mr Zoellick, before you preach to others.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Sydney Internet dating scam lured hardup hard-on men to ‘hands up’ situations where they were robbed. Some of those Casanovas thought they had ‘scored’ when their Internet chat-mates asked to meet them. Guess who were waiting for them.

On hearing of those incidents I immediately cancel 7 and one-half blind dates arranged over the Internet ;-)

The Hindu priest was utterly pissed off. Right in the middle of the holy vedic chanting to bless a wedding ceremony, the marrying couple decided to embrace and kiss. Worse, the blasphemous behaviour was witnessed in a Hindu pilgrim town. Kama Sutra or not, India has very strict obscenity laws.

The priest and his companions complained to the police who hauled them off to court where they were fined 1000 rupees for raunchy exhibitionism. No concession was made for the fact that they were foreigners from Israel. For some weird reason, the Israelis had decided on a traditional Hindu wedding while visiting Pushkar in Rajasthan. Maybe they wanted to embrace the spirit of the devas and asparas.

The president of the organization of Hindu priests (didn’t know Hindu priests even have such an organization) said Hindu Indians will not tolerate any cultural pollution exemplified by such disgraceful behaviour.

I wasn’t aware of another incident last October, where the locals (also of the same area) were shocked by a group of Israeli women dancing naked – yes, Israelis again.

Can anyone please tell me where Pushkar is because I want to be there when the next lot of Israeli women visit that area. I intend to establish goodwill with Israel through them by joining in the dance, obviously in honour of Baal or the Gandharvas.

Katrina was a category 4 hurricane but Rita is predicted, from its pressure readings, as a category 5 which means it’ll be far more devastating than what hit New Orleans.

Millions are evacuating coastal areas of Texas, George Bush’s home state. Houston, the state capital and 4th largest city in the USA, is home to 2 million people, 1.2 million of them are expected to leave straightaway.

But the cruelest blow has been to the evacuees from New Orleans who went to Houston. They will be forced to move a second time.

Meanwhile, Bush has readied his emergency chiefs and state governors, and adopted ‘pre-emptive’ emergency declarations for Texas and Louisiana. After his sorry and callous conduct in Katrina’s disaster, he isn’t taking any more chances, especially in the heartland of conservative America.

Across the Atlantic in Israel, Ariel Sharon, on the advice of former chief rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, are rushing hundreds of thousands of copies of the Holy Torah to Houston. In an earlier post Israeli Rabbi Casts Racist Slur on Katrina's Black Victims I blogged on how Yosef claimed that recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study. Sharon and Yosef believe that a quick browse through of the Holy Torah may alleviate some potential calamities. Yosef also wants Bush to stop supporting any more Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land or Yahweh will continue to punish America for Bush’s sinful crime against the Jewish people.

OK, the paragraph above is the usual KTemoc leg pulling, but seriously I do wonder what Ovadia Yosef will say next to exploit the sufferings of Americans into his bullshit fanatical religious views. I wonder too whether those US Christians who believe God Kills Americans for Israel in Hurricane Katrina's assault on New Orleans, will aver the same divine retribution for Texas in Rita’s case?

In 2000 when Palestinian Israelis protested in sympathy with the Intifada, Israeli police shot into the crowd, killing 13 of its Arab citizens.

An Israeli judicial inquiry said today that it couldn’t identify the officers responsible and despite the 13 dead bodies, has ruled that there was insufficient evidence. Therefore there won’t be any prosecution of the police officers responsible, not even the officer in charge.

Mind you, the 13 were Arabs. I wonder how it would be if they were Jews? As we know, the world famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal who just passed away, could trace 1,100 murderers even several decades after the commission of their crimes against Jews.

Palestinian Israelis said the inquiry has all along intended to cover up the findings rather than lay charges against Israeli policemen.

Hohummm – why am I not surprised? And we hear frequent boasts of Israeli justice! It's just as well Wiesenthal has just passed away, or he would be deeply embarrassed by the double standards of his kinfolks.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The resignation of Angela Mackay from her newly crowned title of Miss Thailand in a Miss World Thailand pageant has set off all sorts of rumours about her abrupt change of heart.

Mackay attribute her decision to her modeling commitment in New York and her lack of understanding that as Miss World Thailand, she would have conflicting commitments in Thailand.

But the rumours are rife that prior to her victory in the beauty pageant, she had posed in raunchy photos, basically in the nude.

Her mother angrily repudiated those rumours, saying that her daughter has been the victim of a malicious smear campaign. According to her, the rumours surfaced months before the contest.

Mum said she has seen those alleged photographs but they were "tastefully taken".

The pageant organiser Prasarn Maleenont pleaded ignorance but promised to investigate the reasons for her sudden resignation. Meanwhile McKay's modelling scout averred that Mackay's portfolio included photographs of her in a bikini, but there was that – no nude pics at all.

This is even more sanitised than Mum's version, which was that the photos were "tastefully taken".

After being crowned Miss Thailand, a sweet 21-year old Aussie girl has decided to surrender her title. She won the beauty pageant just 10 days ago.

Angela Mackay, of German-Thai extract, wasn’t aware that holding the title requires her to stay in Thailand for a year, which would clash with her modelling career in New York.

However there was a rumour that she gave up the crown to avoid the embarrassment of the publication of her in nude modelling photographs. Apparently the Miss World contract doesn’t countenance such nude photos – remember Miss World America who had to forfeit her crown some years back? Mackay denied the rumours.

Naturally she has to return her prize money, a diamond crown and a Toyota Camry. She did that and left the country.

In her place Thailand will send second placed Sirinda Jensen to the Miss World contest in China in December.

Oh BTW, Ms Jensen is of Dutch-Thai extract.

I heard that 3rd place went to another sweet lady of French-Thai extract – OK, this one is the usual KTemoc leg pulling ;-)

An Indonesian navy warship has fired on an unarmed Chinese fishing vessel in waters just to the north of Australia, killing one crew member and wounding two others. The fourth was taken into custody.

KRI Tanjung Dalpele signalled the fishing vessel by radio and visual signals, and when the Chinese boat did not reply, fired three warning shots. The Chinese vessel refused to stop, which led the Indon warship to fire upon its side and stern (propellor area). Three other fishing vessels escaped.

Indonesia tends to over-react to such incidents, opening fire on unarmed vessels when a chase and subsequent capture would have been enough.

An example of contrasting conduct - In August 2003 an Australian Navy (RAN) warship chased a Uruguayan fishing vessel, Viarsa that was illegally fishing in Australian waters, for thousands of kilometres until near South Africa when the SA Navy joined in to apprehend the boat.

At one stage Viarsa attempted to shake the RAN ship by dipping south into dangerous ice-bound Antarctic waters. When it was facing perilous danger of being ice-blocked and suffering a possible crushed hull, the RAN even indicated to the illegal vessel how to sail clear of danger.

Therein lies the different rules of engagement between a country like Australia and Indonesia. One uses the minimum force possible with the lives of even the pursued uppermost in their military conduct, whilst the other resorts to disproportionate force at the first excuse, resulting in the death and wounding of civilian fishermen.

Also, do you remember how he told probably the world’s most powerful media tycoon, Rubert Murdoch (Aussie turned American) that the BBC is anti-American?

Well, there’s more. The author of the reveal-all book, Lance Price, a former spin doctor in Tony Blair's staff, disclosed Blair’s tight relationship with Murdoch. In his book, he wrote:

"Apparently we've [Blair’s government] promised [Murdoch’s] News International we won't make any changes to our Europe policy without talking to them."

[bold and underlined emphasis are mine]

This was of course embarrassing to Blair as it showed him, a PM of a sovereign nation virtually kowtowing to a media tycoon.

According to British civil service rules, as a former member of Blair's staff, Price has to submit his book for censorship. When he did, the Brit government altered the above sentence to read less embarassingly:

"Apparently, News International are under the impression we won't make any changes without asking them"

[bold and underlined emphasis are mine]

thus attempting to provide a completely different picture, one that Murdoch himself has assumed too much, and that Blair doesn’t necessarily agree with or would entertain his 'impression'.

Then Price drove the stake into Blair’s heart by showing how hypocritical Blair had been when the Brit PM sent his airmen or soldiers into bombing or shooting raids. Price wrote:

"I couldn't help but feeling that TB was relishing his first blooding as PM, sending the boys into action. Despite all the necessary stuff about taking action 'with a heavy heart', I think he feels it is part of his coming of age as a leader"

[bold and underlined highlighted emphasis are mine]

The British government panicked and censured this sentence to read:

"I couldn't help feeling that TB had mixed emotions about sending the boys into action. He said he did it with a 'heavy heart', but at the same time he must have known it would happen sometime and maybe it's part of his coming of age as a leader."

[bold and underlined emphasis are mine]

lending a kinder mixed feelings for Blair, whereas Price's original sentence showed Blair to be a bloody chickenhawk hypocrite who relishes sending his troops into what he called 'first blooding' or an initiation of the mighty warlike General (sitting in comfy Dowing Street) into real combat, but combat engaged in by others or other people's children.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

“Elizabeth Bathory! Why, KTemoc, you still remember – how sweet of you!”

The way she said it seemed as if she was actually pleased that I remembered one of my favourite insults for her. But with Margaret, you would never know - her mind worked in the most devious and cunning ways.

BTW, Elizabeth Bathory was a Transylvanian countess in the 16th Century. She murdered and drank the blood of 600 virgins in the belief that the macabre beverage would maintain her youth. She was the original vampire.

One day in class while I was berating Margaret for condoning the exploitation of cheap labour, I called her a blooming vampire, and that she was no better than Elizabeth Bathory. Soon my mates and I started to call her Lizacula. Needless to say, she reciprocated the insults - but there's no need to remind ourselves of what hers were.

But there you are – that summed up my relationship with Margaret, but it must be a more Machiavellian Margaret who would even pretend it sweet I recalled her vampirish traits. Mind you, the way she has grown up to her new looks, she was one hell of a sexy vamp! Maybe I ought to call her Countess instead of Lizacula?

She then said, “What about you then? Still have those Che Guevara and Mao’s posters up on your room walls?”

Her (large beautiful doeful) eyes looked deeply at me with an expectation that I would confess so. I felt weak at the knees, while reminding myself that vampires did have hypnotic powers.

“Nah, those guys were too violent. I am the peaceful type. Mandala's my hero, and please no AK-47 for me - perhaps a flower” I replied nonchalantly, distracted at the same time by her fluttering eyelashes - aiyoo yoyoo, they were just bloody temptingly delicious!

Where's that silver crucifix that a former (Catholic) girlfriend gave me when I needed one? Come to think of it, I might have pawned that away for beer money?

She interrupted my thoughts of that shameful transaction, “Look KTemoc, it’s good to see you again. What say you we have a coffee, catch up and talk about old times?”

Good to see me? She must be kidding. We used to hate each other with deep vengeance, fullstop! Hey, Nelson Mandala called George W Bush the most dangerous person in the world - well, that's how I felt about Margaret then.

Normally with an enemy like her, I would straightaway give her the ta-ta, but please understand, those weren’t normal times. For a start she was better looking than Dubya - OK, I admit it, she's dead set gorgeous. Two, I must confess that by then I was developing lots of hots for her, only that I was too proud to admit it then.

I pretended to glance at my watch but only very quickly, before silly ole her took seriously the pretend-hint that I wanted to buzz off; then I replied with just the correct degree of reluctance (but not so reluctantly that she might cancel the coffee tete-a-tete out of deference for my tight schedule), “OK, I have been meaning to ask you about Ginny anyway.”

Heh heh, Ginny was her best friend and a real stunner – Brilliant! I congratulated myself for 'involving' Ginny - it showed that my willingness to have a coffee with her had more to do with Ginny, and two, it ought to mask my growing interest (or lust?) in her. As the famous Chinese strategist Sun Wu said, "Make a feint to the east but attack in the west."

I only hope Margaret didn't recall too vividly that Ginny and I actually hated each other, mainly because that stupid girl took Margaret's side. Well, some people didn't have any sense or taste.

I have to say I then hated myself for being so pathetic, wanting to yum cha (have tea) with the enemy, but again, like ole Sun Wu said, “Know thy enemy and know thyself and you will win a hundred battles”. Hey, I am all for heeding the advice of the elders, especially at a crucial time like the one I was experiencing.

But she robbed me of any sense of dignity by smiling triumphantly when I agreed to the coffee date, like she knew all along that I would succumb to her will (and looks too). Or perhaps I was just guilty of my own ulterior motive and over imagining that her smile had an underlying message - yeah, that's it, just my guilt playing tricks on me. It's nothing more than Vampira smiling to show she brushed her teeth with Colgate.

Earlier this morning I blogged on how the British Army in Iraq behaved like gangsters, smashing their way into an Iraqi police jail to free two British spies (believed to be either SAS or commandos) caught by the local authorities. Those two were dressed in Arab civilian clothing and had fired on the local policemen. One of the Iraqi policemen died.

The British Army immediately despatched their armour vehicles (mentioned as tanks by Iraqis) to surround the jail where the two Britons were held. In smashing the jail to free the two spies, they allowed 150 common criminals to escape as well.

Their lack of respect for the law of the land, firstly by opening fire on policemen and secondly by conducting an arrogant jail break, demonstrated British hypocrisy about bringing democracy and due process of law to Iraq.

Now, western reporters are questioning how much sovereignty do the Iraqi authorities actually enjoy? The US-led Coalition Provision Authority handed over power to an interim Iraqi government in the summer of 2004.

It’s a joke when the Iraqi government can’t do a single thing against lawlessness in its own land by occupying foreign armies.

The Kuala Lumpur International School, which has about 1200 students from 50 countries, experienced a bomb threat from an unknown person. He made two successive phone calls to the school. The 2nd call was made some 30 minutes after the 1st.

The school evacuated the students at 9.30 a.m. after it assessed that the threat was 'credible'. Police hasn’t discovered anything after a search.

I notice that the Malaysian Star Online was several hours slower than an Australian online news in publishing the news.

2 Brit SAS was spying around in the city of Basra in southern Iraq when they were arrested and jailed. Soon after, the British Army Coldstream Guards took 8 tanks plus a number of troops and surrounded the jail.

Presumably the efforts to free the two ‘spies’ were not successful because the Brits then used two of their tanks to knock down the prison walls and free their jailed compatriots. Along with the two ‘spies’, 150 Iraqi criminals ran off.

A riot erupted in defiance of the British outrageous gansterism, and a number of Iraqis then threw stones and Molotov cocktails, and succeeded in torching two of the tanks, including a couple of escaping tankmen. The burnt Brits are safe in hospital.

Looks like the Brits are copying a leaf of their transatlantic cousin’s book and putting their soldiers above the laws of Iraq. Not only that, they have succeeded in letting loose 150 common criminals into Iraqi society.

Former US President Bill Clinton broke precedence by criticising harshly the administration of his successor Bush in their support of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Clinton said that Bush emergency plans for the people of the devastated areas could only work for middle-class people, and have neglected the poorer elements of society.

Clinton pointed out what everyone already knows, that the catastrophe has highlighted the class divisions of so-called Republican America, and worse, the class divisions are along racial lines.

I have known of people like that. The Americans have a term for them, chickenhawks, meaning they are chicken when it’s their own or their childrens’ blood, but hell of hawkish with other or other people’s childrens’ blood.

The American newspaper New Hampshire Gazette defines it as "A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it ....."

Such an arsehole is most sickening when he is in a position to order others into battle, a backroom warrior sending people to their death (or worse, crippling injuries) for his own personal glories or fantasies or the most sickening of all, enjoyment.

Note Price’s use of the word ‘relish’, which means among other things ‘hearty enjoyment’, ‘zest’, or 'something that lends pleasure'.

Blair enjoys committing his British troops into battle. Now, either his troops or Iraqis could be killed or maimed, but Blair relishes that.

Price stated unflatteringly of Blair that he relished his first blooding as PM when he sent British troops into action in Iraq. Price made that entry when Blair ordered RAF warplanes on bombing missions for the first time along with the USAF over Iraq on Christmas 1998.

Most British or even American leaders sent their troops into combat with the greatest reluctance. But to relish sending people to kill or to be killed is truly sick, cruel, cowardly or mad, or all the four traits combined.

Powerful media tycoon Rubert Murdoch said that Tony Blair had privately accused the BBC (to him of course) of being anti-America in its coverage of the Hurricane Katrina devastation. According to Murdoch the BBC was full of hatred for America.

Murdoch is of course talking about a rival media. It would be akin to the owner of Strait Times of Malaysia badmouthing Malaysiakini, so we can judge how true that would be. Mind you, the British PM office has refused to comment, meaning the private conversation might have more than a gem of truth afterall.

Political analysts said Blair must be ingratiating himself with Murdoch, one of the most influential man in the (English language) western world. His stable of some 300 over newspapers can give a western politician severe headaches.

Murdoch was an Australian who took up American citizenship because the USA won’t permit foreigners to own so many of its newspapers. Murdoch’s papers have adopted a pro Bush and a pro Iraqi war stand.

Unfortunately Murdoch came up with that usual American garbage that the world was jealous of the USA, indicating proof of this in European anti-Americanism. Dislike maybe, even hate, but jealousy? Nonsense.

Former US president, Bill Clinton said that what the BBC had reported was factually correct except those reports seemed to be focussed on the worst aspects of the Bush administration handling. But that's newsworthy and what attract readers. The BBC isn't a media outlet with an obligation to promote Bush.

We need to bear in mind that Tony Blair doesn't like the BBC especially after the world famous news source accused Blair's government of 'sexing up' the Iraqi WMD bullsh*t as justification to invade Iraq. Even though the Blair appointed Hutton Commission cleared Blair and his cohorts from any wrong misinformation to the embarrassing extent of the whole inquiry being a whitewash, the BBC has since been in Blair's gunsight. In the end, the BBC report of Blair 'sexing up' the report is now well known throughout the whole especially that infamous '45 minutes from Baghdad to London' fabrication.

Last week Baghdad was bathed in blood with suicide bombings. The victims were chosen at random with mainly innocents killed. The objective seems to be to create bedlam rather than precise targeting. The strategy was to manufacture instability.

At the back of all the above, we see a combined US-backed Shiite-Kurdish led government against a Sunni led insurgency. We see a draft constitution bulldozed through the Shiite-Kurdish dominated Iraqi interim parliament because the US wants it by a certain date rather than for it to be achieved through consensus. Needless to say, the draft has been rejected by the Sunni faction.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

She was absolutely stunning, a refreshing sight for my thirsty eyes. I saw her at a shopping mall. Elegant, slim and gorgeous, I wonder who she was.

For a moment I thought she looked my way - hahhh! hopeful me as usual. But hey, she actually was - yes, she looked my way and smiled at me too, or at least I thought I caught her insipient smile. O mama mia, that Mona Lisa sweetness, I felt utterly rapt. My lucky day but I looked behind me just to be sure. Okayyyyy man, no one else, I was it!

As she thrillingly approached me, I thought she looked somewhat familiar. That elusive memory told me she was someone I had seen before, hmmm, I must have been dreaming, again. But I was beginning to feel uncomfy.

"Hi, KTemoc ... right?"

It was a voice strange to me but a wonderfully melliflous voice, very sexy with just that touch of huskiness I loved ... but that accent, that curl of her lips that contained just a hint of a sneer, and that cock of her beautiful head, were all too familiar - my bloody heart sank, my hopes dashed, my disappointment must have shown because she said next, "You look disappointed to see me."

It was HER - that bloody bitch from my school days - not just any ole bitch but the most right wing bitch I had the misfortune to cross swords with in class. The bloody f***ing clone of Margaret Thatcher.

How in the f***ing world did a scrawny pimpled faced overbearing boring bitch of a scarecrow with a squeeky voice get to become this gorgeous elegant long-legged babe with the sexiest voice I've heard for a long long time? From Jiang Qing to Hsu Fung - the world just ain't fair.

See how she triggered all those f-word from me - believe me, my blood pressure shot through the roof then, and I was straightaway on battle station.

But let it not be said that KTemoc did not rise to the 'socialist' occasion.

"Ahaa! Accusing as usual, Margaret! Who's disappointed? I was desperately searching for a name in the deeper recesses of my subconscious to place you."

That should put her in her place - BTW, Margaret's her real name, and did not refer to Margaret Thatcher, her heroine.

Thick skinned as usual, she replied, "I looked different from our school days, don't I?"

I had a natural instinct with people like her - t'was on the tip of my tongue to lash out and hurt her in the most caustic manner, but I pulled back at the last minute and told myself after a second of inward reflection - what the hell, man, those bitter days were years back in school, ancient history blah blah, no grudges, clean slate, etc, etc

"Well, Margaret, you do dress differently ..." I grudingly conceded, avoiding any reference to her personal looks. I wasn't ever going to admit she looked gorgeous. And when one talked with a bitch like Margaret, one looked carefully for hidden (verbal) daggers and secreted poisonous darts (remarks). I was very wary, I must admit.

"What's this 'Margaret' business, remember you used to yell 'Maggie' at me?" she smiled in the most friendly disarming manner, and added just before I relaxed too much, "But you look the same, dishevelled hair, casual [bitch, bet she meant 'sloppy'], and you even have the shadow of a beard. Still keeping that socialist look?"

My systolic pressure must have jumped up by several millimetres of mercury but hey hey hey KTemoc, I told myself before I retorted angrily, hang on a ding dong minute, you did have dishevelled hair, unshaven face [especially on a Sunday, and it was a Sunday] and you were the most casually dressed bloke in town - the only reason you didn't wear Japanese slippers was because you thought someone might spit on your bare toes [and not accidentally too].

"Yes Maggie, I am still what you used to call a pinko, and do you still keep those posters of Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth Bathory, and Catherine the Great in your room?" I replied ever so sweetly, making up those personalities [& not that I had ever been in her room, Heavens forbid]

The man Bush acclaimed as the "champion of freedom & democracy", Ariel Sharon, has revealed himself as the colonial master of the Palestinian people by stating that HAMAS shall not be permitted to participate in the Palestinian elections - yes he mentioned the Palestinian, not the Israeli elections.

Sharon vowed that if Abbas allows HAMAS to participate, Israel will impose roadblocks on the West Bank or other measures to bugger the Palestinian elections. He added arrogantly that he can’t see how the Palestinians could have elections without Israeli cooperation.

There you are, you have it from the Overlord of the Palestinian people. He decides who they vote for.

If anyone ever wonders why the rape of women in places like Pakistan has happened so reguarly with impunity just read on.

President Pervez Musharraf told the Washington Post a few days ago that with regards to the notorious frequency of rape in Pakistan, foreigners should understand the Pakistani environment. Musharraf averred that Pakistani women had themselves raped as a money-making concern.He stated that those women had sinister intentions, for by getting themselves raped, they could make money and even become a millionaire, get a visa and migrate to Canada.

That, people, was the President of Pakistan talking - one of President Bush's staunchest allies..

The best known Pakistani rape victim, Mukhtar Mai, told the BBC that it was utterly despicable to suggest a woman could subject herself to such a horrendous experience just to make money.

Mai was raped on a trumped up charge by lustful Paki men. She became known throughout the world after being gang raped in 2002, on the lustful orders of a village council or panchayat. Some of the very village councillors who passed judgement on her to be 'revenge' raped were the rapists themselves.

Mai said "I offer all the riches I've made out of the panchayat-enforced gang-rape to the president in return for justice."

Those rapists are yet to be punished. A court had ordered them freed due to “lack of evidence”. It was only due to world's outraged and American-European political pressure that Musharraf ordered the men re-arrested and re-tried.

In Karachi on Friday, 19 rights and advocacy groups protested against Musharraf comments. Sumar Mallah, a fisherman whose five-year-old daughter was raped and killed on 5 September, was at the rally protesting Musharraf’s chauvinistic stupidity.

Mallah said: "The police and the rapists have been insisting that I accept money and forget about my daughter. I will never settle for money. I want justice."

As everyone in Pakistan knows, President Musharraf has paid only lip service to stooping the abuse of women, because hundreds of them are still being raped and murdered every year in so-called honour cases in Pakistan.

But more importantly Musharraf has shown that Pakistan's Sharia laws haven't brought about the protection, security, respect, dignity and justice for women that their counterparts in most non-Sharia states enjoy.

The Israeli chickens have come home to roost. And it’s due to the un-kosher conduct of some Israeli generals.

Israel’s former military chief Moshe Yaalon and present military chief-of-staff General Dan Halutz were responsible for the decision in 2002 to bomb a Gaza City neighbourhood. The objective was to kill the Hamas military chief, Salah Shehadeh. The bomb was a one-tonne bomb. It killed 14 civilians, most of them children.

It’s one thing to kill an enemy combatant but when their decision ignored the harm to innocent civilian lives, then that’s criminal. The US military had done this many times over but in its case no one could drag a 500 kg gorilla to court, but Israel is not exactly a 500 kg gorilla so there is a warrant out in Britain for them, for war crimes against humanity.

There is also a warrant against retired major-general Doron Almog, the army commander in Gaza until 2003, who has been accused of the demolition of 59 houses in the Rafah refugee camp. Both he and General Halutz had initiated the Israeli army's policy of mass house demolitions in the Gaza Strip. That is illegal under international law.

Their other crimes were the so-called ‘targeted killings’ of Palestinian fighters but which went off-target and instead killed many innocent civilians. The truth is the Israeli authorities had treated the Palestinians callously as subhumans in the same manner as the Nazis had treated the Jews in Europe.

As I have remarked fairly often, the Israeli authorities have behaved exactly like the worst of Nazis. It's ironical that the children of the Holocaust are misconducting themselves like the evil prosecutors of their predecessors.

Daniel Machover, a Israeli-British lawyer has been the person who sought the arrest warrant. He said he had to do it via the British justice system because Israel's high court has ruled that the Geneva Conventions do not apply in the occupied territories. This demonstrates the bias of the Israeli courts.

War crimes are bloody war crimes, especially so in occupied territories. Otherwise, what’s the bloody point of having international Conventions on the conduct of war and military occupation. Maybe those Israeli courts believe that the Palestinians are the children of Ham?

Friday, September 16, 2005

President Bush has been completely bamboozled by Ariel Sharon again or the American leader is simply tolerating Israel’s aggressive and arrogant land grab of Palestinian territory in the West Bank.

By abandoning the difficult-to-defend Gaza, but still maintaining control of air, land and sea access to the territory (and even pocketing any tax collected in the custom process), Sharon has effectively told Bush that now it’ll be up to the Palestinians to show non-violence as proof of their ability to govern on their own. Of course in the meantime he continues expanding Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.

The sad and unfortunately biased part on the Americans has been their well known tolerance of Israeli land robbery. How do they expect Abbas to keep control of very angry Palestinians when they see their territory stolen and occupied by fanatical Jewish settlers? Sharon is so confident that things are rolling towards his way once again that he even averred Bush's 'roadmap' is currently on a very long 'hold'.

Obviously Sharon has no intention of taking the 'roadmap' as that would lead to Palestinian statehood. Palestinian statehood is something that Sharon will sabotage every inch of the way. He insists as part of the pre-requisite requirements that Abbas disarm the militants, which he knows will remain an impossibility as long as Israel refuses to withdraw from the West Bank but instead expands with new Jewish settlements.

Basically Sharon and Bush are saying to Abbas, “Now you have Gaza (nothing more than a prison), disarm, behave and keep still, regardless of what Sharon does.”

But what have the Palestinians gained thus far other than a land prison?

Yet they are being compelled to close an eye to the Jewish lebensraum. Given Israel's expansion into and occupation of Palestinian territory and US acceptance of such colonialism, the cycle of violence in that region will continue, and it’ll be a bloody miracle if Abbas can last. But that’s precisely what Sharon wants, with a moderate Abbas out of the way, and the militants taking over, the Israeli robber becomes “legitimate” once again, masked as a defender of land actually stolen from the Palestinian owners. The Palestinian land owners will in turn become "terrorists" rather than defenders of their land.

In a region of asymmetrical military powers, abetted by a biased USA, there can be no fair play for the robbed. The robber instead is feted as courageous and a champion of freedom. The USA therefore lies at the root of Sharon’s evil and avarice.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Mark Latham, former Aussie Labour Party leader who resigned a few months back as a result of ill-health has just published a tell-all book about Aussie politics, especially on his own party.

However, he has something on the other side of the political fence too. He revealed why at one stage during the election campaign he was seen to be crowding the PM aggressively during a courtesy handshake. That manoeuvre was widely criticized by political observers.

Latham has a reputation of being rough physically, giving it out as much as he received. Latham once chased after a taxi driver who seized his briefcase after he refused to pay the exorbitant charge. In a rugby tackle to stop the cab driver, Latham broke the poor bloke’s arm. He also called George Bush some best-not-recalled names.

According to Latham, John Howard had the habit of always trying to crush the opponent’s hand during a handshake. Howard’s tactic would include vigorously shaking the handshake with the whole arm rather than just with the wrist.

Mark Latham said:

"It's a small man's thing, trying to show you can match the big guy at something. I wasn't too worried about it, thought it was funny, until the last Sunday of the campaign at the St George Leagues Club lunch, when Howard did the same thing to Janine.”

Janine is Latham’s wife. She complained to Latham after Howard shook her hand:

"That man just tried to break my hand. It really hurt”.

That was too much for Latham to tolerate, so he gave it back to Howard. He also crowded Howard so that the PM couldn’t do his arm shaking bit again.

Latham couldn’t resist his usual stinging language and said of Howard:

"The weak animal looked startled. It's ironic, however: I'm supposed to be the intimidating one in politics, but I have never tried to break a woman's hand. How does Howard get away with it?"

In the USA a federal judge has upheld America’s doctrine of the separation between State and church. He ruled that the reciting of a pledge to the US flag may NOT include the reference‘one nation under God’.

An atheist has bought the lawsuit because he believed that the Pledge of Allegiance and its reference to God violates school children's right to be 'free from a coercive requirement to affirm God’.

The judge said he was following legal precedence set the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled 3 years ago in favour of anther atheist that using God in any public school pledge was unconstitutional.

Since Bush became president his Christian Right allies have been getting more bold and aggressive in inserting the reference to God in public life which militates against the USA constitution of separation between State and religion, a stand adopted by many European countries who had suffered from the oppression of the once-powerful church.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is telling the UN that it no longer occupies Gaza and thus holds no responsibility for it. Yet it wants to control air, sea and land access into and out of Gaza to restrict human and economic traffic. The only land access that it doesn’t directly control is at the Gaza-Egyptian border where it has an agreement with Egypt.

Sharon has effectively turned Gaza into the world’s biggest prison. It controls the movement of the Palestinians living there, economically, socially and by virtual of that, politically and militarily. They are as good as prisoners under house arrest, or some sort of labour slaves in a big pen.

The Israeli government-ordered evacuation from Gaza wasn’t for the benefit of the Palestinian, but to facilitate enhanced defence for Israel and Israelis, and to capitalise on Bush’s earlier promise that Israel could have more settlements in the West Bank – in other words, abandon a inconveniently located occupied outpost for an overall improved land grab (of the West Bank) that will eventually see Israel's most sought-after prize, Jerusalem, inside a new consolidated Israel.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Can a diplomat be arrested let alone incarcerated? There are certain protocols established under international conventions which respect the sanctity of a diplomat.

But then, some countries don’t believe in international laws or conventions, unless of course those suit them.

Abdul Salam Zaeef was a former Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Taliban may be repugnant but nevertheless was the government in Kabul. When the USA wanted to attack and invade Afghanistan after the 9/11 incident, the Americans gave a warning to Pakistan – their usual “either you’re with us or against us” stuff.

The real and probable sole obsession of Pakistan has been, is and will be Kashmir, a province over which it has been battling India in three wars and for close to 60 years. The thought of the USA coupling up with arch enemy India against it over Afghanistan was too overwhelming - it will lose Kashmir to the hated India. It decided to abandon its erstwhile ally and kinfolks the Taliban and shift across to the US side to neutralize the Indians – Kashmir must not be lost over Afghanistan.

What the Pakis did then was to de-recognise the Taliban regime and arrest its ambassador, Zaeef. I am not sure whether the international convention on the diplomatic corp allows this sort of finicky fiddling. Anyway, the Pakis claimed Zaeef lost his diplomatic immunity, and made a present out of him to their new ally, the US.

The US incarcerated Zaeef in the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which would be another query to consider. Assuming it is against international convention to lay one’s hands on the ambassador of an enemy nation, then the US has been accomplice to the Pakistani violation of international conventions.

After 4 years of imprisonment by the US, Zaeef has been released. He returns to Kabul soon. There have been attempts to suggest that Zaeef supports the current Afghan government headed by an American nominated candidate, but the family and friends of Zaeef denied such a lie. They said that Zaeef remains affiliated to the Taliban.

As expected, Zaeef’s relatives complained that instead of handing over a recognized diplomat to the US, Islamabad should have kept him as per the protocol, under house arrest in Pakistan. But the might of the unilaterally inclined sole super-power was too much for Pakistan to withstand.

Zaeef had to be the sacrificial lamb to Baal to keep the Kashmir option still open.

Lee Siu Lung is better known to the world as the legendary Bruce Lee. A martial artist flim star, he caught the imagination of a worldwide audience with his genre of kungfu movies showing fist fighting minus the flourishes. His famous films have been the Chinese language Fist of Fury and the English language Enter the Dragon.

Like a blazing comet, he died at a very prime age of 32 in what was widely believed to be a sex-drug scandal with lovely HK actress Betty Ting Pei.

But his fans rather than mourn his death celebrate his memory with his brand of pseudo-Wing Chun martial art, spinoff movies and books, etc. Thus the Bruce Lee legend lives on.

And even more so today in the Bosnian city of Mostar, of all places.

Mostar has an ethnic problem among its populace, where racial conflict broke out between Muslims and Croats in 1993-1994. For the most weird reason, the Serbs, Croats and Muslims hero-worshipped Bruce Lee. They reckon he represents justice, mastery and honesty. So they have agreed to erect a new symbol of unity in a statue of Bruce Lee.

On the 30th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s death his fans in Mostar will honour him as well as provide a unifying symbol for the various ethnic groups.

A German organisation has agreed to foot the bill with a 5,000 euros grant. The statue will be cast in bronze, with Bruce Lee in a typical fighting pose. I wonder whether they will incorporate an audio system a laTeresa Teng’s grave site so that visitors may hear Bruce Lee’s famous signatory “Ai eeeeeeeee-yah.” His widow Linda will be invited to attend the ceremony.

Bruce Lee’s kungfu has finally reached the most supreme level of achievement – it brings peace to a Bosnian town.

One day I relaxed on the backyard decking with a glass of chilled Riesling, watching the birds - real feathered types - pecking away at the seeds thrown to them by a little boy. Let's call the young lad Tee-tee.

Tee-tee suddenly turned to me and asked, "Do you know who Lilith was?"

A little stunned at Tee-tee's knowledge of Lilith, I asked curiously where he learnt about her. He answered rather nonchalantly "In school, during Bible class."

I must say that hadn't been the case when I was in Bible class eons ago, where my mates and I made do with just Eve. Seeing that Tee-tee was still waiting for my answer to his query, I nodded. He then shot another question at me, whence by then I had an ominous feeling I was been driven slowly into quicksand. I saw all these in by his bright, piercing and very curious eyes.

"Who was she?"

I riposted, "I thought you learnt that in school?" - an evasive attempt to avoid awkward explanations. I was rather pleased with my brilliant verbal manoeuvre.

"I like to learn a bit more from you." Oh oh oh! Young Napoleonic Tee-tee has seized the military initiative with this offensive – nope, he sure wasn't going to let me get away. He then twisted his psychological knife in my side a little bit more by adding: “I saw you reading a book called Lilith’s Dream – A Tale of the Vampire Life.”

How in the bloody world did the wee brat know that?

Moral of the story – be careful around kids, 'cause they pick up minute details that you aren’t even aware of.

I knew I was approaching a veritable mine field, thus I hesitated for a while to regroup my thoughts 'ere I answered. I had to choose my words very carefully.

According to Jewish beliefs or legend (in which case why was Tee-tee learning this in a Catholic school?), first man Adam had another wife before Eve. Like Adam, she was made from earth too. No sirree, she wasn't a mere rib material. Would that make her equal to Adam?

The No 1 Lady was called Lilith, but she didn't get along well with old Adam, so she was expelled from the Garden.

Of course it was gross simplification. OK, I was a coward for skirting around the juicier and occult bits, but hey, we are dealing with a kid in his very tender years..

Well, that’s it then! I began to congratulate myself for handling a tricky situation rather well, and indulged straightaway with a hugh gulp of wine. That was when he caught by surprise that nearly left me choking on my Riesling.

"She was rebellious, wasn't she?" Tee-tee fired off that terrifying information like a Rumsfeld's cruise missile. Shattered by shock and awe, I turned slowly to look at him, trying to discern whether he understood that misogynous biblical euphemism.

Simultaneously, in a mere fraction of a sub-second these thoughts rang through my mind - My God! Was Lilith ‘rebellious’? She most certainly was. She was the mother of them ‘rebellious’ women – vroom and wow and oh la la! And that’s why those ancient religious misogynists hated her.

I must confess then, my most un-Biblical-like mind zoomed to images of a wild wanton Lilith straddling and riding a startled and confused Adam lying on his back in the Garden of Eden while unicorns, griffins and the phoenix cheered them on.

But looking at Tee-tee's solemn face and innocent eyes I felt ashamed at my quick diversion to X-rated Garden. To avoid my voice giving away my naughty thoughts, I gave a non-committal quick nod to him.

By then, I was very wary of his inquisitive, inquiring and inquisitorial probing, which went on for a while. After a fairly long discussion - more like a Kempetai interrogation - I felt safe enough to take a large swallow of my wine.

That's when he, with solemn face and innocence, dropped the 1000-megaton GPS-guided GBU-37 GAM bunker-buster question that had me spluttering the Riesling all over the decking.

"Was Lilith a virgin when she left Eden?"

Praise be to the Lord, who is One, for my startled spluttering. It saved me from answering that. I exploited that cover to make a hasty retreat to the toilet where I locked myself away from further grilling by a one-boy Gestapo-like Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Under Bill Clinton's administration, the US military doctrine does not mention the use of nuclear weapons pre-emptively or against weapons of mass destruction threats.

Now the Pentagon has revised that doctrine, as a draft for approval. It wants the option of pre-emptive strikes against a nation or terrorist group that possesses weapons of mass destruction. The revised draft also embraces other factors that justify such pre-emptive strikes, including the destruction of stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Though the draft document is officially only at the level of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, and not yet approved by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, we may assume that the drafting would have been given the latter's quiet nod.

The fact that the revised draft is not classified and available on the Pentagon’s website signals that it is meant to be read by “interested party” or parties.

Now who could that well be?

Hint: Last year the US Congress f**k off a proposal to examine the viability of using nuclear warhead in bunker busting bombs. Using a tactical nuclear warhead means the damage of the target will not only be earth-shattering but also prevents its reoccupation. Now, what target could that possibly be?

The revised draft has again picked up those threads that Congress killed.

Now, who did/does the US administration has in mind when it considered/considers destroying with finality certain enemy sites that may be built underground?

The revised doctrine gave the following occasions when presidential approval would be sought to press the button:

(1) Against an enemy using or intending to use weapons of mass destruction against US or allied military forces or civilians.(2) In case of an imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.(3) For attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons.

Hmmm, who is the intended culprit that the US (or someone else) fears?

Monday, September 12, 2005

Aussie PM John Howard believes that the al Qaeda videotape warning of an attack on Melbourne may be for real, though he qualified that by pointing out that Gadahn has made previous threats that were bullsh*t.

Oh by the way, Howard said that the threat reminds all Aussies that everyone now lives in a changed world, and therefore will everyone please support his plans for legislative change to counter terrorism that he had proposed last week, which a number of people objected to because it looks a bit like that terrible Malaysian ISA thingy.

Howard added that no government in the world could guarantee there won’t be a terrorist attack in its country. The thing to do though is to, however, is to strengthen the nation’s domestic capacity to stop terrorist attacks occurring in the first place, which I presume includes having strong anti-terrorist laws.

OK, I suppose with such a threat some freedom may be lost but it’s a small price to pay.

al Qaeda has threatened Melbourne and Los Angeles as its next two targets in a video tape obtained in Pakistan by the media. ABC News broadcast the tape in the US, obviously concerned about the threatened strike on Los Angeles.

Australian authorities are taking the threats seriously though they aren’t sure yet of the authenticity of the tape. However, Victorian state Premier Steve Bracks assures the public that security arrangements are in place for a series of sporting events including the famous Melbourne Cup, the Australian (rules) Football Finals and the Commonwealth Games. He advises the public not to be intimidated by the intended fear that al Qaeda wants to instil in Australians. Brack is of course worried that the al Qaeda threat may dampen enthusiasm and support for ther sporting events.

The video footage shows a masked man, believed to be Californian man Adam Gadahn, threatening attacks on the two cities. As a teenager, Gadahn had converted to Islam at a California mosque.The bloke even has the cheek to utter "We love peace, but peace on our terms", and then more in tune with his al Qaeda character,"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne".

He added, as if we don’t already know, that the attackers will show no compassion.

Officially the US recognizes only “one China”, diplomatically implying it’s up to Beijing and Taipeh to sort it out between themselves, hopefully by peaceful means. It also means that the USA does not de jure recognize Taiwan as an independent entity, though it has a historical defence arrangement with the Island state.

Now, under the Bush administration, the US Congress will be presenting a human-rights award to President Chen of Taiwan for his efforts in promoting tolerance, democracy, and human rights. I believe there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Chen has certainly been promoting democracy for Taiwan. He doesn’t want to abide by the ‘one China’ policy anymore - a policy that has consensual agreement among Beijing, Washington and Taipeh, at least until Chen came into power. The ‘one China’ policy has kept a reasonable lid on the Chinese cross-strait hostility for more than 3 decades.

But in reality it disadvantages Taipeh in the international arena. Diplomatically, other than a few insignificant Pacific and Caribbean island-nations Taiwan does not exist. Taipeh is not represented in international forum as the ‘one China’ policy means China is represented by Beijing.

But the human-rights award is not all the US Congress will be awarding Chen. Now members of the US Congress, dominated by Bush Republican Party wants to sponsor and promote Taipeh’s membership in the UN, a move to give Taiwan an independent status which abandons the USA’s hitherto policy on ‘one China’.

Whether that is right or not, Beijing will not tolerate such an external interference in what it considers as its ‘internal affairs’. But that may be precisely what the US Republican Party wants.

The current rightwing Republican Party’s drive to promote Taiwan’s independence may not be for Taipeh’s benefit. One needs to be wary of the US Republican Party, who probably wants to create another distraction from Bush’s current abysmal performance – a terrible pathetic presidential performance that’s now dawning on those who have supported him into his second presidential term.

The Republican Party fears a voters’ backlash in the 2006 Congressional election. And there’s nothing like a scrumptious juicy Chinese cross-strait imbroglio to marshal outraged Americans around the GOP, the ‘only’ American party damn capable of fending off not only al Qaeda terrorists and Saddam Hussein’s WMD, but also the rapacious yellow peril of the Communist hordes. "Thank you, Mr Chen, for your contribution to our Party cause!"

Personally I believe Beijing’s apparently overt hostility to Taiwan’s independence is more for show, not so much against Taipeh, but more to deter any similar moves by its northwest regions or Tibet. The ‘corrupting’ influence of 23 million Taiwanese brought up under an anti-communist regime may be more than a handful for Beijing to handle, so the current status quo or even some arrangements a la Hong Kong one-nation-two-systems model would be more preferable.

I predict at some stage in the future, say, maybe 30 years time, Beijing will come to some arrangements with Taipeh that will see the Taiwan cut loose officially from the China-nation. This may depend on how well Beijing pacifies its northwest regions.

About Me

Just a bloke interested in the socio-political whatnots around the world, particularly those in Malaysia. Loves a laugh or/and story or two, or more, but loves civility and courtesy much more, especially in politics